The next morning I set out with Bellino.
He believed, no doubt, that the scene of the previous night had cured me, and that I would trouble him no further.
We had not been together a quarter of an hour before he found out his mistake.
Whenever I looked at him, the old doubt returned.
His eyes, his mouth, the turn of his neck, the softness of his voice, all spoke against the evidence which had frightened me. I could not persuade myself that a man could produce in me the fire which Bellino produced.
I told him that all his features were those of a woman, and that I wanted the testimony of my eyes before I could feel perfectly satisfied, because the protuberance I had felt in a certain place might be only a freak of nature.
"Should it be the case," I added, "I should have no difficulty in passing over a deformity which, in reality, is only laughable. Bellino, the impression you produce upon me, this sort of magnetism, your bosom worthy of Venus herself, which you have once abandoned to my eager hand, the sound of your voice, every movement of yours, assure me that you do not belong to my sex.
"Let me see for myself, and, if my conjectures are right, depend upon my faithful love; if, on the contrary, I find that I have been mistaken, you can rely upon my friendship. If you refuse me, I shall be compelled to believe that you are cruelly enjoying my misery, and that you have learned in the most accursed school that the best way of preventing a young man from curing himself of an amorous passion is to excite it constantly; but you must agree with me that, to put such tyranny in practice, it is necessary to hate the person it is practised upon, and, if that be so, I ought to call upon my reason to give me the strength necessary to hate you likewise."
I went on speaking for a long time; Bellino did not answer, but he seemed deeply moved.
At last my patience failed me.
"Bellino," I said, "you have brought me to such a fearful state that I shall be compelled to treat you without any regard for your feelings, and find out the truth by force."
He answered with much warmth and dignity: "Recollect that you are not my master, that I am in your hands, because I had faith in your promise, and that, if you use violence, you will be guilty of murder. Order the postillion to stop, I will get out of the carriage, and you may rely upon my not complaining of your treatment."
Those few words were followed by a torrent of tears, a sight which I never could resist.
I felt myself moved in the inmost recesses of my soul, and I almost thought that I had been wrong.
I say almost, because, had I been convinced of it, I would have thrown myself at his feet entreating pardon.
Thus I satisfied myself by remaining dull and silent.
We travelled so for a long while.
The wheels rolled on. The postilion cracked his whip. Bellino dried his eyes and looked out at the road. I did not speak until we were within half a mile of Sinigaglia, where I meant to sup and spend the night.
Having fought long enough with my own feelings, I said to him;
"We might have spent a little time in Rimini like good friends, if you had felt any friendship for me, for, with a little kind compliance, you could have easily cured me of my passion."
"It would not cure you," answered Bellino, courageously, but with a sweetness of tone which surprised me; "no, you would not be cured, whether you found me to be man or woman, for you are in love with me independently of my sex, and the certainty you would acquire would make you furious. In such a state, should you find me inexorable, you would very likely give way to excesses which would afterwards cause you deep sorrow."
"You expect to make me admit that you are right, but you are completely mistaken, for I feel that I should remain perfectly calm, and that by complying with my wishes you would gain my friendship."
"I tell you again that you would become furious."
"Bellino, that which has made me furious is the sight of your charms, either too real or too completely deceiving, the power of which you cannot affect to ignore.
"You have not been afraid to ignite my amorous fury, how can you expect me to believe you now, when you pretend to fear it, and when I am only asking you to let me touch a thing, which, if it be as you say, will only disgust me?"
Bellino replied: "Ah! disgust you; I am quite certain of the contrary. Listen to me. Were I a girl, I feel I could not resist loving you, but, being a man, it is my duty not to grant what you desire, for your passion, now very natural, would then become monstrous.
"Your ardent nature would be stronger than your reason, and your reason itself would easily come to the assistance of your senses and of your nature. That violent clearing-up of the mystery, were you to obtain it, would leave you deprived of all control over yourself.
"Disappointed in not finding what you had expected, you would satisfy your passion upon that which you would find, and the result would, of course, be an abomination. How can you, intelligent as you are, flatter yourself that, finding me to be a man, you could all at once cease to love me? Would the charms which you now see in me cease to exist then?
"Perhaps their power would, on the contrary, be enhanced, and your passion, becoming brutal, would lead you to take any means your imagination suggested to gratify it. You would persuade yourself that you might change me into a woman, or, what is worse, that you might change yourself into one.
"Your passion would invent a thousand sophisms to justify your love, decorated with the fine appellation of friendship, and you would not fail to allege hundreds of similarly disgusting cases in order to excuse your conduct. You would certainly never find me compliant; and how am I to know that you would not threaten me with death?"
"Nothing of the sort would happen, Bellino," I answered, rather tired of the length of his argument, "positively nothing, and I am sure you are exaggerating your fears. Yet I am bound to tell you that, even if all you say should happen, it seems to me that to allow what can strictly be considered only as a temporary fit of insanity, would prove a less evil than to render incurable a disease of the mind which reason would soon cut short."
Thus does a poor philosopher reason when he takes it into his head to argue at those periods during which a passion raging in his soul makes all its faculties wander.
To reason well, we must be under the sway neither of love nor of anger, for those two passions have one thing in common which is that, in their excess, they lower us to the condition of brutes acting only under the influence of their predominating instinct.
Unfortunately, we are never more disposed to argue than when we feel ourselves under the influence of either of those two powerful human passions.
We reached Sinigaglia late at night.
I chose the best inn, asked for a comfortable room, and ordered supper. The chamber was decent, clean, and warm enough, but it had only one bed.
I turned to Bellino with all the calm I could command.
"Shall I have a fire lit for you in another room?"
He looked at the bed, then at me.
"No," he said quietly. "I have no objection to sleeping in the same bed with you."
Such an answer, however, unexpected, was necessary to dispel the angry feelings under which I was labouring.
I guessed that I was near the denouement of the romance, but I was very far from congratulating myself, for I did not know whether the denouement would prove agreeable or not.
Still, I had the satisfaction of believing that I had conquered. I even persuaded myself that I was master of my senses, in case they should attempt to lead me astray.
But if I found myself in the right, I thought I could expect the most precious favours.
We sat down to supper opposite one another.
Bellino had changed. Or perhaps I, being now full of hope, saw change in everything.
His words, his countenance, the expression of his beautiful eyes, his sweet and voluptuous smile, everything seemed to announce that he had had enough of playing a part which must have proved as painful to him as to me.
The weight on my mind lifted.
I shortened the supper as much as possible. Bellino noticed it and smiled, but said nothing.
As soon as we left the table, he called for a night-lamp.
Then, without embarrassment, he undressed and went to bed.
I was not long in following him, and the reader will soon know the nature of a denouement so long and so ardently desired; in the meantime I beg to wish him as happy a night as the one which was then awaiting me.